The Rowlatt Act of
1919, extended wartime "emergency measures" to imprison without trial, any
person suspected of terrorism living in British India. Nearly 100 years
later, we have the same oppressive laws in the current war on "terror".
The huge difference is that we don't have a Gandhi today to battle the British
imperialists. Who will fight for the innocents, commentator Niranjan Ramakrishnan
asks.

"When
Government undertakes a repressive policy, the innocent are not
safe. Men like me would not be considered innocent. The innocent
then is he who forswears politics, who takes no part in the public
movements of the times, who retires into his house, mumbles his
prayers, pays his taxes, and salaams all the government officials
all round. The man who interferes in politics, the man who goes
about collecting money for any public purpose, the man who addresses
a public meeting, then becomes a suspect. I am always on the borderland
and I, therefore, for personal reasons, if for nothing else, undertake
to say that the possession, in the hands of the Executive, of
powers of this drastic nature will not hurt only the wicked. It
will hurt the good as well as the bad, and there will be such
a lowering of public spirit, there will be such a lowering of
the political tone in the country, that all your talk of responsible
government will be mere mockery...

"Much
better that a few rascals should walk abroad than that the honest
man should be obliged for fear of the law of the land to remain
shut up in his house, to refrain from the activities which it
is in his nature to indulge in, to abstain from all political
and public work merely because there is a dreadful law in the
land."

It was bad
enough, when the bill doing away with habeas corpus and adherence
to the Geneva Conventions was being discussed this week, that
its supporters actually said that only those who had done wrong
need worry. It is further testament to our standard of political
discourse that the rebuttal was often equally pathetic - we can't
trust this president to exercise good judgement! Few statesman
in today's debate can capture the issue as succinctly as did Rt.
Hon. Sastri nearly a century ago.

All of this
is moot, in another sense. This is just one more slide, albeit
a huge one, in a long list of slippages our people and politicians
have allowed over the last decade, always with the exhortation
to 'put it behind us'.

We
set out to make Iraq in America's
image. We have succeeded splendidly
in achieving a certain mutual
resemblance. Today there is no
difference between disappearing in
Iraq and disappearing in America.
In one place you might be held
incognito by a militia, in the other
by the government. Until yesterday,
the difference was that in America,
the government was obliged to
produce you before a magistrate,
to let you have a lawyer, to allow
your family to know.

We set out
to make Iraq in America's image. We have succeeded splendidly
in achieving a certain mutual resemblance. Today there is no difference
between disappearing in Iraq and disappearing in America. In one
place you might be held incognito by a militia, in the other by
the government. Until yesterday, the difference was that in America,
the government was obliged to produce you before a magistrate,
to let you have a lawyer, to allow your family to know.

The mobs
in the middle east may raise a million cries of, "Death to America",
but it is George W. Bush and his pocket Congress that are carrying
out their wishes.

'Na Vakeel,
Na Daleel, Na Appeal', was the slogan raised by Indians against
the imposition of the Rowlatt Act in 1919. Translation "No lawyer,
No Trial, No Appeal".

"The Rowlatt
Act was passed in 1919, indefinitely extending wartime "emergency
measures" in order to control public unrest and root out conspiracy.
This act effectively authorised the government to imprison without
trial, any person suspected of terrorism living in the Raj." (From
Wikipedia)

There was
anger in India - and shock. Whatever one's dislike of British
rule, it had the perceived merit of standing fast by notions such
as open trials, prisoner's rights, appeals, due process, impressive
in a country which had mainly known princely whim for justice
in earlier times. The Rowlatt Act tore the veil of moral superiority
from the public face of British rule.

Indian opposition
to the Act, voiced by many well-meaning and eloquent legislators
such as Sastri, was ignored. Public outrage was widespread, but
unfocused. Gandhi was then a relatively fresh face in India, having
returned from South Africa less than four years before. His exploits
in South Africa and more recently in Bihar had won him fair renown,
but he was by no means yet pre-eminent.

"When
Government undertakes
a repressive policy, the innocent are
not safe. Men like me would not be
considered innocent. The innocent then
is he who forswears politics,
who takes no part in the public
movements of the times, who retires
into his house, mumbles his prayers,
pays his taxes, and salaams all the
government officials all round.
The man who interferes in politics,
the man who goes about collecting
money for any public purpose,
the man who addresses a public
meeting, then becomes a suspect."-
Rt. Hon. Srinivasa Sastri, speaking in the
Imperial Legislative Council, at the introduction of the
Rowlatt Bill, Feb 7, 1919

Though on
unfamilar political terrain and younger than many other leaders
in a country where age equated to deference, Gandhi had two attributes
that set him apart from most other leaders - daring and faith.
Only he could have had the nerve to call for a general strike
throughout India, as he did.

Only he could have grasped that a draconian law was an insult
to the country, and that to not counter it in the fullest measure
was to betray an article of faith. He was in Madras, at the home
of his host Rajagopalachari (later to be the first Indian Governor
General), when, as he writes in his autobiography, "The idea came
last night in a dream that we should call upon the country to
observe a general hartal (strike)". On April 6, without any formal
organization, in an era without phones, photocopiers, or computers,
word spread, and the entire country came to a standstill!

If Gandhi
found a law permitting detention without trail by a foreign government
abhorrent enough to launch a nationwide general strike, what is
America doing when similar laws are being passed by its own government?

Answer: Not
even a filibuster. Are there political leaders holding town hall
meetings (electronic and otherwise) telling the people what this
draconian legislation means? They are far too busy trying to dodge
the accusation of being 'soft on terror'. As in 2002, this will
not save them. Tony Snow warned today that their statements of
doubt during the debate can and will be used against them in the
campaign (proof that Miranda at least still lives, after a fashion).
They are, in Sastri's words, "Toadies, Timid Men".

Following
the hartal, in Punjab (where the Lt. Governor would shortly impose
indignities such as a crawling lane where Indians could not walk,
but only crawl), people assembled in a park in Amritsar on Baisakhi
Day (the Punjabi New Year) on April 13, 1919, to protest the arrest
of two activists. Known to history as Jallianwalla Bagh, the garden
was enclosed all around by a wall. Gen. Reginald Dyer, head of
the army in Punjab, said he wanted to provide Indians a "moral
lesson", and had his troops fire into the enclosed space, resulting
in the death of 379 people (by official count).

There
was anger in India - and shock.
Whatever one's dislike of British rule,
it had the perceived merit of standing
fast by notions such as open trials,
prisoner's rights, appeals, due process,
impressive in a country which had
mainly known princely whim for
justice in earlier times. The Rowlatt Act
tore the veil of moral superiority
from the public face of British rule.

The rest
(no pun intended) is history. After the Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala
Bagh, the English lost any moral hold they had over the minds
of Indians. The Great Hartal also signified the beginning of the
Gandhi Era. Within thirty years, the Empire was finished. As a
booklet on Jallianwalla Bagh says, "If at Plassey the foundations
of the British Empire were laid, at Amritsar they were broken".

In our times,
having already disdained the law and being caught out by the Supreme
Court, our Emperors are trying to rewrite the statute retroactively,
assisted by a conscience-free Congress. That a reportedly sick
man hiding in a cave in Waziristan has brought about the abolition
of habeas corpus in America is the clearest verdict on who is
winning the War on Terror.

In India,
in 1976, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi passed a similar law, abolishing
habeas corpus and setting herself unpunishable for any crimes
committed before or during her office (it was repealed, lock stock
and barrel, when a new government came to power). But before she
could do so, the entire opposition had been arrested, the press
had censorship clamped on it, and the jails filled with a hundred
thousand dissenters picked up in midnight sweeps. India's parliament
does not have a filibuster. The Democrats and Republicans who
sold the country down the river have no similar defense, other
than to say it has become a habit.

Where is
the Martin Luther King today to call for civil disobedience? Where
are the crowds outside the White House and Congress? The fight
is no longer against the Bush administration or its minions in
the other estates. Their Empire is headed for the abyss. The question,
is, will it take the Republic along?

Gandhi wrote
in his Satyagraha in South Africa (whose 100th Anniverary fell
on 9-11-2006!), that people came to him saying, "We are ready
to follow you to the gallows". He replied, "Jail is enough for
me." If the Republic is to be saved, those who love it must ask
themselves what they are ready to give up in return. As for the
rest, Samuel Adams (yes, the beer guy) had this answer:

"If ye love
wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than
the animating contest of freedom, " go from us in peace. We ask
not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which
feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity
forget that ye were our countrymen!"